Fashion Victims
by Qweb
Summary: Natasha and Pepper go shopping for dresses. Nothing good can happen. Rated T for violence because Natasha is going to get angry and you wouldn't like her when she's angry.
1. Chapter 1

**Fashion Victims**

"Try this on," Pepper Potts instructed. It was 40 percent a suggestion and 60 percent and order. Pepper felt she owed Natasha Romanoff a debt and she was determined to repay it in good fashion — with good fashion.

Natasha Romanoff thought acting as Pepper's assistant (bodyguard) was all in a day's work for an Avenger and taking down the attempted kidnapper had been child's play. But Natasha also appreciated the concept of having red in her ledger. If Pepper wanted to buy her something to say thank you, Natasha wasn't going to object.

She just wasn't sure why Pepper settled on dress shopping.

* * *

><p>"It really isn't necessary," the SHIELD agent had protested. "I have more than enough clothes."<p>

Pepper made a scornful noise. "Dresses from missions. Don't you want a dress that's all for you, that doesn't make you think of blood and combat."

Natasha wavered then. It was true that all her nicest clothes were from SHIELD. It would be nice to have a dress that would make Tony wolf-whistle and make Bruce and Steve dope-slap him simultaneously, a dress that would make Clint's eyes light up and make him shake his head when he couldn't identify it with a city and a mission.

"That would be nice," she admitted.

"Done," Pepper said with a smile.

* * *

><p>So here they were after-hours at Renee-Irene's, a tasteful boutique where the goal was to make the customer look beautiful and not to show off the designer's imaginative innovations. Renee-Irene herself was tall and poised and genuinely friendly. She gladly opened her store after hours to suit the CEO's busy schedule and Natasha's concerns about security.<p>

"I'm sorry you had to stay late," Natasha said to Renee-Irene's chirpy young assistant, Cherry Wang.

"Oh, no, I'm happy to stay," the girl said. "The extra money helps with all the college loans and Ms. Potts is wonderful to work with. She's been very kind with advice about starting my own business."

"Cherry hopes to go into competition with me someday," Renee-Irene said impishly.

The girl laughed. "Never in competition," she said. "I want to specialize in business suits."

"Leaving me merely with evening gowns and cocktail dresses. You are too kind, my dear," Renee-Irene said with a musical laugh.

"Hmm, I think a cocktail dress is more what I'm looking for," Natasha mused. She twirled in front of the mirror. The black sequined evening gown looked beautiful on her, but, in her mind, evening gowns were work attire. She wanted something she could wear for dinner at a good restaurant with a little clubbing after. "And no black, or red."

Renee-Irene and Cherry held a discussion that consisted primarily of pursed lips and tilted heads.

"Reminds me of you and Clint," Pepper said quietly with a little giggle. She was sitting on a comfortable chair with her purse on her lap and a cup of exquisite coffee on the small table beside her. Her prim pose made it clear that this fitting was about Natasha not her.

"Maybe the green?" Cherry suggested.

"I think the sea-blue," Renee-Irene countered.

Cherry blushed. "Really?" she squeaked.

Renee-Irene just flicked one finger and Cherry scampered away in excitement. She went through a curtain-draped door into what ought to be the shop next door. Natasha caught a glimpse of bare plywood and plastic-covered shapes beyond. When she and Pepper came in, Natasha had noticed security bars on the empty store next door and windows covered with plywood painted in bright designs.

"How is the remodeling coming?" Pepper asked Renee-Irene.

"They've finished the construction," the couturier answered. "Next comes the decorating. For now, we're storing the new collection in there."

"Be sure to send me an invitation to the grand opening," Pepper said.

"You will be first on the guest list," Renee-Irene promised. "I don't know if I could have gotten the loan without your backing."

"I didn't tell them anything but the truth," Pepper replied. "That you were my favorite designer and had a loyal clientele. And that I would bankroll your expansion if they wouldn't."

"Which is why you're my favorite," Renee-Irene said honestly.

Natasha stepped into the curtained changing room to remove the evening gown, but didn't bother to close the curtain. The only thing she had to hide was her arsenal, tucked in her purse under her neatly folded street clothes.

Cherry returned, pushing a button beside the door after she came in. She looked like she was carrying a waterfall. The sleeveless silk dress shimmered in blending shades of blue and teal.

"Oh," said Natasha, entranced. She reached greedily for the dress and slipped it on. It hugged her curves and clung to her thighs. A gauzy ruffle in the same colors outlined the shallow V-shaped neckline. From the point of the V, the ruffle snaked to her left hip and curled down around the asymmetrical hemline.

"Oh … my … God!" Pepper said in admiration. "You look like a water nymph!"

"This is Cherry's design," Renee-Irene said proudly. The fashion student blushed and stammered at the customers' praise.

"The fabric is Renee-Irene's design," the girl said.

"You two make a perfect team," Pepper said honestly. "Don't let her get away, Renny. Make her a deal. Make her a partner!"

"Isn't that what I said?" the couturier asked the student.

"I thought you were joking," Cherry said breathlessly. Then, remembering the customers, Cherry scampered for the accessories. "These shoes would be perfect," she said, handing Natasha a pair of three-inch spike heels in a rich, dark blue. Then Cherry darted off again, looking for the matching handbag in a jumble of goods that had been moved because of the construction.

Renee-Irene stepped backward toward the shop door to get a better look at the ensemble. Natasha slipped on one shoe then, teetering, reached for the other. Pepper stood and put her hand on Natasha's shoulder to help her balance. Cherry popped up, holding up the bag in triumph.

In that moment with Natasha off balance on one foot, looking down at her shoe, someone came through the front door.

"I'm sorry, we're closed," Renee-Irene began as she turned.

A big man backhanded her in the jaw. She went flying across the room, crashed headfirst into the wall and collapsed unconscious without ever seeing her attacker.

Cherry shrieked in fear and a second man entering on the heels of the first fired his silenced pistol. The promising fashion student dropped with a hole between her eyes and an expression of fear on her face.

"Now, Miss Potts, you're coming with us," the first man growled around the stub of a lighted cigar. He inhaled in triumph, making the cigar tip glow red.

**To be continued**

* * *

><p><em>AN: Yes, I know, I liked her, too, but now Natasha has good reason to get mad. This is part 1 of 3. _


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: For Jelsemium who thought Cherry might have been working with the attackers. No, she unlocked the side door to the shop next door, which will be another room for the store but is now used for storage. The baddies came in the front door from the street._

_So, we left the women with poor Cherry dead, Renee-Irene unconscious and Natasha standing on one foot with all her weapons several feet away in the dressing room._

* * *

><p><strong>Fashion Victims, Part 2 <strong>

Poised motionless, still on one foot, Natasha analyzed the five attackers who crowded into the store. The leader was a big, bald man and looked even more bulky because of the body armor hidden beneath his business suit and his overcoat. He pulled an assault rifle from beneath his coat and smirked at the two women.

"I don't think your bodyguard is going to be able to help you this time," he told Pepper smugly, which relieved Natasha's mind. He didn't seem to know she was an Avenger.

The pistol-wielding man was lean with dark hair and cold, cruel eyes. Behind him was huge man with shoulders like a bull who carried a shotgun. After him came a younger blond, the only one who looked nervous, and a tall, muscular black man in a gray turtleneck. The first carried a pistols and the second an assault rifle.

* * *

><p>Natasha thought she had two advantages. She didn't think they would dare to use the automatic weapons because they wanted Pepper alive. And they thought they had caught Natasha off balance. The Black Widow was never off balance — though she did wish her weapons weren't five feet away hidden under several layers of clothing.<p>

"Stand still!" the leader ordered, gesturing at the black man to take the women prisoner. "Caught you unarmed this time," he gloated at Natasha.

Natasha straightened slowly, still on one foot, right shoe dangling from her toe, one hand on Pepper's shoulder for balance. "Unarmed," the spy admitted, giving Pepper's shoulder a warning squeeze. "But not unfooted."

Before they could even register the non-word, Natasha flicked her right foot, tossing the loose shoe into the black man's face. He batted it aside impatiently, but that was just a diversion. Natasha launched herself straight up and kicked out with her left leg, driving the three-inch spike into the gunman's eye. With a gargling cry, he fell straight back and Natasha landed on his face, driving the spike clear into his brain.

Even the hardened gunmen froze at the macabre sight. Natasha kicked free of the shoe and shoved the shocked Pepper toward the side door.

"Go!" she yelled.

Pepper held her mouth as if to hold in vomit, but she didn't hesitate. She ran to the door, yanked it open and dove into the dimly lit room beyond. Natasha followed, flinging shoes and handbags at the attackers to prevent them from firing their weapons.

She plunged through the door and Pepper slammed it shut behind her, then fastened the security bolt, but it was a flimsy thing, hardly better than a latch on a bathroom stall door.

"It won't hold long," the CEO said grimly.

"Barricade," Natasha ordered.

The unfinished store was dimly lit by sunlight filtering through the cracks between the pieces of plywood on the display windows. Display cases and racks of clothing were shrouded in dropcloths and protective plastic sheets.

At Natasha's command, the two tackled the nearest display case. It was empty but still a weight for the two women. It scraped across the bare concrete floor. Pepper set her back against it and shoved, using one hand to guide it while the other reached for her phone. The specially made Starkphone had a panic button that she pushed immediately. Jarvis should have answered instantly, but all she heard was a buzzing.

The men were pounding on the other side of the door, but, for the moment, leverage was on the women's side.

"You might as well give up," the leader shouted. "You can't call for help. There's a 'mysterious cell phone outage' in this neighborhood," he gloated.

"Some kind of jammer," Natasha said in disgust, because even taking out the cell towers wouldn't block Pepper's Starkphone.

"You'd better let us in," the leader warned. "If you keep delaying me, I'm going to get angry."

"I'm already angry," Natasha growled, thinking of poor dead Cherry and Renee-Irene, who might be alive but needed medical help as soon as possible. "You're not going to like me when I'm angry."

She looked around the room, but there wasn't much of use. The workmen had neatly taken their tools with them and hadn't left any hammers or convenient nail guns lying around.

"Give me your purse," Natasha said to Pepper.

She dumped it out on top of a display case. "I don't suppose you have any gadgets?" she asked.

Pepper shook her head. "Not since a valet almost cut my foot off with a keychain laser," she answered. "Would have ruined a perfectly good pair of Louboutins, too," she joked weakly.

If Natasha had to be trapped in such peril with a civilian, she was glad it was Pepper, who was cool under fire. That wasn't to say she wouldn't rather have Clint with his bow or Cap with his shield, or just her own damn pistol that was in the other room.

The agent draped Pepper's keys — sans laser, darn it — over her shoulder and quickly sorted through the purse contents: a brochure about a spa Pepper had brought for Renee-Irene, small notebook, pen and mechanical pencil set, dental floss, nail clippers (not even scissors), an emery board.

"Not even a nail file?" Natasha mourned.

"Nothing that can be considered a weapon," Pepper said apologetically. "I go through so many security checkpoints."

"Oh, everything's a weapon in the right hands," Natasha muttered. "Just some things are easier to turn into weapons than others," she admitted, tossing a booklet of stamps aside in favor of an enameled pillbox of aspirin, a powder compact and a lipstick.

"Not even a paperclip," Pepper said, referencing a long-standing joke about how many ways Natasha could kill a person with office supplies.

The men were throwing themselves against the door. The slender bolt was beginning to bend and the screws were starting to pull out of the wall.

"Here." Natasha handed Pepper the compact, the aspirin and the emery board with orders to crush the aspirin and scrape at the powder until it was loose.

First thing Natasha did was use the nail clippers to nip a tiny slit in her blood-spattered skirt. "So much for a dress that doesn't make me think of killing," she said. The slit gave her a start so she could rip the hem up to her hips and free her deadly legs. "Sacrilege," she mourned. "I really liked this dress."

Then she ripped a piece out of the brochure and began folding it, using the base of the lipstick to give it a super sharp crease. Glossy paper is soaked in clay, which is why it's stiffer than notebook paper and gives such nasty paper cuts, she explained to Pepper. After that, she pulled out all the dental floss in one long string and knotted the ends together, then, oddly, she did a rapid cat's cradle and pulled her creation taut into a thin cord. She threaded the pen and pencil where her fingers had been, making handles.

The bolt snapped off the wall and the men began lunging at the door, gradually shoving the display case aside.

"What's the plan?" Pepper asked.

"I hope you're not squeamish," Natasha said.

"Not after what they did to Cherry," Pepper said harshly. Her jaw was set in determination.

"Then this is what I have in mind," Natasha said.

* * *

><p><em>AN: So, as you can probably tell by now, this is my second attempt at the "what Natasha can do with what's in her purse" story. Except she doesn't even have her purse. She has Pepper's. The first attempt was "The Return of Cerulean St. Cloud," Chapter 61 of "A Very Good Team." And you caught the Agents of SHIELD reference, didn't you? Of course, you did._


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Sorry about the late update. Had a ton of chores to do today._

* * *

><p><strong>Fashion Victims, Part 3<strong>

With one last shove, the would-be kidnappers made an opening to get into the aide room, but the display case got jammed against the wall, so the men could only enter one at a time. Natasha regretted the lack of her gun, because they made perfect targets.

Bull-shoulders squeezed through first, struggling for a moment to get his bulk through while keeping a grip on his shotgun. Natasha considered this a mistake. If they still hoped to take Pepper alive, they should have sent one of the men with handguns first.

All Bull could see was scattered racks of clothes shrouded in opaque white plastic. An urgent whisper came from Pepper's dictation app: "Tony. Tony. I need help. We're under attack." Plastic shifted at the far left, when Pepper tugged a linked chain of belts fastened to a coat hanger several yards from where she crouched, hidden among evening gowns.

Bull grinned to himself and, forgetting about the gruesome death of his comrade, he began to stalk his prey without waiting for back up.

The younger gunman protested, but Bull ignored him. The youngest man sidled through the gap followed by the man who killed Cherry. They hurried after Bull.

Still puffing on his cigar, the boss man came last, squeezing his bulky frame through the tight space with difficulty.

"Don't you know smoking is hazardous to your health?" Natasha appeared before him, blowing powder from her palm into his eyes. The crushed aspirin burned fiercely in his eyes and — bonus! — the cloud of loose particles was ignited by the glowing cigar. It flared brightly, mostly harmless but startling.

The boss pulled back, hand raised to protect his face, leaving his throat vulnerable.

Natasha slashed twice with the razor sharp edge of the creased brochure paper. They were just paper cuts, which aren't usually dangerous — unless they open the carotid arteries. The boss hardly felt the cuts, but the spray of warm liquid from his neck made him drop his weapon in a panic and press his hands futilely against the high-pressure spray.

"That's for Renee-Irene," Natasha hissed viciously.

The Widow didn't have time to look for the boss' fallen gun when his squawk of alarm drew the attention of his men. She tossed her paper razor aside, its edge made soft and useless by the blood.

Taking two running steps, she sprang on the back of Cherry's killer and wrapped her dental floss garrote around his neck, knotting the handles together. Choking, the killer clawed at his neck, unable to release the suffocating cord. Fury in his bloodshot eyes, he tried to bring his gun to bear on Natasha, but she took it out of his weakened hand with ease.

"That's for Cherry Wang," she snarled, booting him in the gut for emphasis.

He dropped to his knees, grasping at her foot, but she ignored him. The bull-shouldered man and the novice gunman were just beginning react to Natasha's whirlwind attack. She calmly put two bullets through the head of the man with the shotgun, then she turned to the last man, the youngster, whose grip on his assault rifle betrayed his inexperience. He was staring in horror at the death throes of man at Natasha's feet. She smirked at the young man, tossed the pistol aside and advanced on him, taking the keys from around her neck. Holding the key chain, she swung the keys back and forth like nunchuks — nunchuks with teeth. The grim, bloodstained fury made the armed man retreat until he bumped into a display case. He brought up his gun in a shaking hand. Natasha brought her flail down on his hand. The gun fell from gashed, broken fingers.

Natasha picked it up and pocketed it, then, twirling her key-flail nonchalantly at the last remaining gunman, she demanded, "Tell me who hired you to kidnap Pepper Potts."

* * *

><p><strong>Two days later:<strong>

The televised news program shifted from the main anchorwoman to the business reporter.

"In news that stunned the business world, Martin Anze, CEO of Hammer Industries, was found dead in his office yesterday, the apparent victim of a bizarre accident, when a paperclip was jammed through his ear hard enough to pierce his brain."

The anchorwoman winced visibly. "How does that even happen?"

"Apparently he was holding the paperclip when he tripped over a wrinkle in the rug and fell on his side," the business reporter replied.

The image switched to film of a tearful secretary. "He was always playing with paperclips," she said. "He untwisted them, making shapes."

The camera panned across the executive's desk, showing several paperclip sculptures. A voice over of the secretary continued, "I used to tell him he'd poke an eye out," she wailed. "But I never thought …" Her words cut off in sobs.

The TV image returned to the anchorwoman and the business reporter in the studio. "It's so bizarre, it sounds like a TV murder plot," the woman said.

"Who'd kill a man like that?" the man answered. "The police have ruled out foul play. Anze was alone in his 34th-floor office all afternoon. No one could have gotten in or out."

* * *

><p>"You're good," Pepper told Natasha. They clinked wine glasses as they sat on the couch watching the news. "I can't believe you actually used the paperclip."<p>

"I was going to use a letter opener, but when I saw the paperclip sculptures, I couldn't resist," Natasha admitted.

* * *

><p>"What impact will this have on Hammer stock?" the anchor asked.<p>

"It started falling as soon as the word reached Wall Street," the reporter said. "But, to be honest, it doesn't have far to fall. It's been a low end stock since the arrest of company founder Justin Hammer after the attack on the Stark Expo."

"Stark Industries won't miss Anze," the anchor commented. "I understand he was in competition with Stark CEO Pepper Potts for a big government contract."

An image of Pepper came on the screen. "I was shocked to hear about Martin's death," she said. "The business world won't be the same without him."

* * *

><p>"You're good, too," Natasha said, raising her glass in acclamation.<p>

"It wasn't a lie," Pepper said. "The business world won't be the same. It will be a lot cleaner."

"And so much safer," Natasha agreed.

* * *

><p>Renee-Irene recovered from her severe concussion with no memory of the attack to traumatize her, though she mourned the loss of her protégée.<p>

Her expanded shop was a success and her next clothing line was a major hit, though only a few people understood why a collection that featured cool blues and sea greens was named The Cherry Collection.

* * *

><p><strong>The End<strong>


End file.
